Higher Stages of Meditation (con't)

This post follows the previous post entitled: "Is Meditation Only Mindfulness: 7 Stages of Meditation."

In the prior post I identified the first two stages which I called: Mindfulness, and Focused Concentration. Mindfulness I described as relatively passive and dealing with observing the influence of the subconscious mind. Focused Concentration describes the vast bulk of meditation techniques which involve using will power, feeling and concentration in a positive direction focusing on some goal or object of meditation. 

 INNER SILENCE (Stage Three) Many people ask whether the goal of meditation techniques is to still all thoughts and mental narration. Well, 'yes' and 'no!' I call it the "goal-less goal" because the way the mind works (Yogananda called it "natural turbulence") we cannot and should not attempt to force the mind into submission like a stubborn donkey. But we CAN coax and train the mind. "Be still and know that I AM God" says the Psalmist. Yogananda called meditation "the space between thoughts." He also noted that the "soul loves to meditate but the ego hates to meditate."

Achieving inner silence is, then, a goal but must be approached very sensitively. Any tension surrounding the "effort-less effort" will sabotage achieving the goal. It can happen spontaneously in or out of meditation but it helps to be alert to it for it comes "like a thief in  the night. The experience is a refreshing dip into the silent mind and still heart. We can gently coax the silence to come by our secret longing and lo it will fill the space between thoughts and activities. At a stoplight, between phone calls, emails or projects, stop, stand or sit up straight, look up, smile, open your mouth as if to speak and be prepared to be cleansed in a weightless waterfall of peace. Befriend the silence as your best friend. Silence is always behind, beneath, above, and all around you. 

Interestingly, the deeper you go into your technique(s) in Stage 2, the more likely or more easily you can slip into silence when you shift the effort of "doing" to enter "being."

It is worth saying that the higher stages beyond silence can descend upon you in the midst of your techniques, thereby skipping the stage of inner silence. My description of 7 stages is linear only for the purposes of describing aspects of meditation but in real life,  well, "anything can happen!" But like a skillful craftsman with his tools or a gifted artist with her voice or instrument, it is the discipline of regular practice that forms the foundation for the genius and inspiration to reveal itself. 

Silence is not merely NO-THING. Silence is not empty; it is full of potentiality; it is powerful, sometimes overwhelming. Its potential is what yields the fruit of the next stage, Inner Experience. "Out of the silence came the song of creation!"

INNER EXPERIENCE  Like the stage of Focused Concentration, Inner Experience (Stage 4) constitutes the bulk of what is commonly described as experiences that take place in deep meditation: light, sound, vibration, love, peace, calmness, joy, visions, ideas and inspiration, satori and an endless variety of subtle phenomenon. Unfortunately, the ego eagerly claims credit for such things and yogis warn us from seeking these experiences for their own sake. "The path to enlightenment is not a circus" Yogananda would say. These things are milestones showing us that we are in touch at last with more subtler levels of reality. They are not proof of our sanctity or psychic powers and generally should not be discussed or disclosed openly but held quietly in gratitude. 

Such experiences are manifestations of our astral or energy body and of the astral world in which the astral body lives and moves. We don't actually achieve this ability: it's there all the time. It is our identification and preoccupation with the physical world, the senses, our thoughts and emotions that obscures what is already there. 

When such things happen we tend to doubt what we are experiencing. At some point we accept it as real rather than hallucinatory and we begin to enter into the experience by tasting its fruits of peace or joy or love. As we are able by deep relaxation and self-forgetfulness (including dispensing with the narration describing it) to receive or approach the experience with acceptance, love and/or self-offering, we begin to see these things as conscious (indeed, super-conscious), living, loving manifestations of our divine nature, God, guru or etc. 

Nonetheless, at this stage the "I" the experiencer is still very present. "I am feeling peaceful; seeing the inner light; hearing the sounds of the chakras." It is still not enough These divine manifestations of superconsciousness are there to invite us deeper into the next stage. In the Eightfold-Path this stage is called dharana.

ABSORPTION Here (Stage Five) mere words fail us for words require a subject, verb and object. Here the awareness of our separateness fades into a point of singularity of the experience itself. We are not in a trance; we are not less conscious; we are SUPER-conscious; more alive and aware--far more--than in ordinary states of waking consciousness. This is the stage known as dhyana. Usually translated simply as "meditation," this suggests that "real" meditation doesn't begin until we enter this state which Yogananda called Superconsciousness. As he also wrote, "When motion ceases, God begins." When we return to ordinary awareness, we never think "I don't know where I went." Absorption is deeply rejuvenating.

SAMADHI Stages Six and Seven are the two basic stages (in fact there are many more sub-stages) of cosmic consciousness, called "samadhi." Stage Six is the initial experience by which we leave our body and enter the Infinite Bliss of God beyond all creation. (Technically, we have three bodies: a physical body; an energy (astral) body; and a thought (causal) body.) In this initial stage, called Sabikalpa samadhi, we return to ordinary ego consciousness with the memory of an awesome experience that we tend to claim as part of our ego. From this tendency we can easily lose the ability to go back to that state. But in time and with supreme effort and grace we can achieve the permanent state of Nirbikalpa samadhi which frees the ego forever from the hypnosis of its separate identity. I'm not going to dwell in these two final stages for two reasons: 1) I've not experienced them; 2) you haven't either! We both are better off for now focusing on Stages 1 through 5. I could describe what I have been taught in entering first an astral tunnel of light taking us to the causal tunnel of light which takes us to the white star, the doorway into Infinity. But, well, it wouldn't help us at this moment.

Joy to you!

Swami Hrimananda

Is Meditation only Mindfulness? 7 Stages of Meditation

Mindfulness meditation--both the term and the practice--dominates the field, conversations, and clinical studies of meditation. Is the practice of mindfulness the sine qua non, the final definition, of meditation? Most certainly NOT! By my account, mindfulness is only the beginning: and, an excellent beginning at that. If, for many, it is also the end of meditation, then so be it. Its contribution is worthy of the effort. ("The laborer is worthy of his hire.")

In the long history of meditation which the yogis of the Far East specialized in, there is much, much more. I'll be the first to admit that it is better to meditate than to merely TALK about meditation (or WRITE about meditation!) But it is also useful for most of us to understand the WHY, HOW, and the PURPOSE of meditation.

Based on the teachings of Paramhansa Yogananda (author of "Autobiography of a Yogi"), I've identified seven stages of meditation. These stages align loosely with the Eight-Fold Path described by the sage Patanjali in the now famous YOGA SUTRAS. I will only make casual references to the eight-fold path because I want to focus more on the experience of meditation.

The stages parallel the process of growing self-awareness that we see during a human life and in the progression from lower life forms up to sentient life. This is to say, from the sub-conscious state to what Yogananda called the Superconscious state. But, lest I digress, let's talk about the stages. I will do so in twol articles rather than one large one.

STAGE 1 - MINDFULNESS When we sit in meditation and engage in the practice of simply observing our thoughts as those thoughts arise, we are peering down into the subconscious mind. This is not a clinical statement but, if you don't mind a pun, it is an observation! Where else would random thoughts come from when we are not engaged in activity or in conscious contemplation? The value of this form of meditation is potentially enormous, especially for those who have never meditated before and have generally not been living an intentional, conscious lifestyle. The movie, "Doing Time, Doing Vipassana" describes how some prisoners in Tihar Prison in India were transformed by their 10-day Vipassana meditation experience.This simple form of mindfulness can be very powerful for everyone at least to some degree especially in direct relation to the influence of the subconscious mind on one's thoughts, attitudes, and behavior. 

The principal challenge with mindfulness practiced in this way is that beginning meditators aren't generally able to detach from their own thoughts and emotions and calmly observe them with non-attachment. Accustomed as most people are with identifying themselves with their thoughts and feeling, it is difficult for almost everyone to resist not being fully engaged in the inner dialogue of the thoughts that do arise. 

For this reason, most mindfulness techniques are really more like Stage 2 meditations because the meditator is directed to focus elsewhere while calmly accepting the appearance of thoughts as a natural phenomenon. 

STAGE 2 - FOCUSED CONCENTRATION Here we find the vast majority of meditation techniques which engage our will, feeling, and mind. Broad categories include techniques using breath awareness and control; mantra; visualization; and affirmation. The bhav of any given technique might be predominantly mental, devotional, or energetic, or some combination of all three. Some are basic such as watching the physical breath while silently chanting a mantra or affirmation; others, are more advanced because focused on the subtle or energy body in the energy centers of the chakras, the flow of prana in the subtle body, or any of their many manifestations. While will power and concentration characterize all of these, some are more passive and others more active. 

They are all "aspirational" in that the technique employed affirms a state of consciousness higher than the subconscious or conscious mind. In the practice of the technique, there remains some level of awareness of the distinction between "I" the doer and what I am seeking. 

I should point out that at any time in meditation, one might be suddenly transported into a higher state whether consciously sought or not.

In the stages of Patanjali's Eight-Fold Path focused concentration includes niyama (positive action), asana (strength and determination), pranayama (calming of life force and purity of feeling), and pratyahara (focus of the mind away from the senses).

This stage constitutes the bulk of what most people associate with meditation. But it is by no means the final or higher stages.

In the next installment we will touch upon the higher stages beginning with inner stillness, moving to inner experience and rising toward cosmic consciousness.

Stay tuned...............................Aum, Shanti, Amen!

Swami Hrimananda

Yoga Sutras Blog Post # 6! Samadhi at Last!

Yoga Sutras – Blog Article # 6 - Book 3 – Vibhuti Pada

We now arrive, at last, at Book 3 – Vibhuti Pada. Without attempting to be scholarly on the subject, there are two meanings of the term “vibhuti” that I am familiar with: one, is that the word refers to the sacred ash that remains after a fire ceremony. I recall that it also refers to divine aspects or “shining attributes.” Both terms apply here because Patanjali essentially reveals in Book 3 those attributes, born of superconsciousness, that arise to the yogi who has achieved the higher states of consciousness. Sacred ash works, too, because these attributes are what are left over from the self-offering of ego into the soul. (Ash may sound negative but the negative part is the ego and the positive part is what is sacred.)

But first Patanjali must describe to us the last three stages: dharana (concentration), dhyana (meditation), and Samadhi (oneness). As usual his statements are pithy and clinical. To truly understand these sutras one must have a true (Self-realized) guru to unlock their secrets. Using resources that include Yogananda’s lecture notes from his talks on Patanjali and translations of commentaries written by disciples (both direct and subsequent) of Lahiri Mahasaya, and from my teacher, Swami Kriyananda (direct disciple of Paramhansa Yogananda), and what little might occur to me in this effort, I would like to proceed with great caution. I feel as if I am driving into a tunnel with dim headlights and the expectation of many diversions and obstacles.

The first five stages of the 8-Fold Path are considered “external.” Now that’s not easy to understand, looking back at the prior blog articles, but relative to the land beyond our dreams into which we will go in the final 3 stages, it can make some sense. That last word, sense, is purposeful and a pun, here. Because one way or another the first five stages have something to do with our relationship to the body and senses, even the subtle senses.

The first of the three (last) stages is called dharana. It is often translated simply as “concentration.” Dharana is the stage of consciousness where, in meditation, we can hold the mind steady and focused. If you are a meditator, try this experiment: using a timer, see how long you hold your mind without the intrusion of a single thought! (No need to report back!) Well, advanced yogis can do that for long periods of time. Yogananda offered that we would have to achieve one hour before we could say we’ve made any substantial progress in meditation. Well, you can pretend you didn’t hear that from me.

In the stage, now, of dharana our mind is focused and we experience what are called “thought waves.” Notice how when you meditate and gaze upwards behind closed eyes towards the sixth chakra (the Kutastha), that everything seems to be in motion. We aren’t aware of it but all physical sense stimuli come to us in repeated waves. Take for example the sense of touch. We must constantly move our hand over the object we are touching in order to continue to feel it. Same with smell, we must periodically sniff, as it were. If we were to stare fixedly at a candle in time the image would vanish. All material objects are pulsing with electromagnetic waves and the result, at least to our senses, is more or less that these objects are fixed in time and space, when, in fact, they are constantly moving, being held in their orbit by electromagnetic radiation.

And so it is, also, with our perceptive faculties. So long as the “I” is present and witnessing itself and the object under its microscope, we experience a constant sense of wave motion. It’s difficult, isn’t it, to even hold one thought in clear and unbroken focus. This is because even subtle objects such as mental images or perceptions of subtle sight and sound, wash over and toward us in pulses. It is like the refresh rate on your computer monitor or TV screen: the electrons are being fired rapidly and repeatedly in order to hold in steady focus the image on your screen. It happens too fast, usually, for us to notice unless we, perhaps, look away or to the side and then we might notice the fluctuation.s. One of the reasons for this is that nothing “outside” of ourselves is real. All is ultimately thought-waves. When at last these waves subside we have at least a taste of Stanza 2: “yogas chitta vrittis nirodha” (The state of Oneness is achieved when all thought-waves subside into the Eternal now!)

In meditation we concentrate on various things, but let us say, for illustration, we are focused on the heart chakra. It takes effort and concentration (achieved, ironically, only by deep relaxation and focused attention) to hold our awareness in the area of the heart, or anahat, chakra. But as we progress in meditation, a steady and prolonged concentration on any object will produce a state of breathlessness. This state of steady perception is the state of dharana. It is the gateway to the highest states of consciousness. Achieving it is the price of entry. It is your “ticket to ride!”

It is interesting that dharana is associated with the negative pole of the sixth chakra. This center resides at the base of the brain, near the medulla oblongata. It is the seat of ego consciousness. In dharana the sense of “I” perceiving or concentrating upon something remains. (See my blog articles on the 8-Fold Path, including dharana.)

In the next stage, dhyana (translated, simply, as meditation), the object yields up its wisdom as the “I” principle merges into the object. In one translation that I have the verse (no. 2) describes the knowledge that flows as “about the object” whereas in another translation it says an unbroken flow of thoughts towards the object. It is a curious and seemingly important distinction until you realize that “you” have disappeared and that the difference in verbs, so to speak, has no real meaning. The important point is that you have become that object. No words, which are but symbols, are confined to the world of distinctions, or duality and there is a point, and it is here, where words simply cannot go.

In an effort to be less mental about it, let’s say you are experiencing a deep state of inner peace. In the stage of dharana you experience this peace even as you witness it and yourself witnessing it. As your consciousness relaxes and expands and joyfully offers itself into this living Presence what results is, simply, Peace. The “I” which watches has become that state of peace. That’s as far as I can go with words.

To return to the correlation with the chakras, in dharana we gaze, as it were from the base of the brain up and into the third eye (the positive pole of the sixth chakra; known as the Kutastha). As our consciousness expands upward toward the object or experience our center of gravity moves up and into the forehead (well, kinda). Hence dhyana is associated with the Kutastha center (point between the eyebrows).

Finally, Samadhi results when even the object, as an object (or state of consciousness), vanishes and we become whatever “meaning” or essential consciousness underlies the object. This is even harder to describe. It is a state of complete absorption and while I don’t want to stumble on terminology here let me say that the sutra itself speaks in terms of a state of oneness with specific objects, or states of consciousness. I will be so bold as to describe this as the final stage of superconsciousness, as it relates to the soul as an individual spark of Divinity (not, therefore, in the sense of cosmic consciousness which comes later). In dharana, we see the promised land; in dhyana we enter the promised land; in samadhi we ARE the promised land. (Hey, I’m trying, can’t you see?)

From Lahiri Mahasaya comes the description that Samadhi takes place when the mind (dhyata), the goal (Brahman), and meditation (dhyana) are undifferentiated, the true nature of the object shines forth. I take this to mean, restated at least, that when the “I” principle (the mind), the soul principle (Brahman), and the process of meditation (act of contemplation) are One in relation to an object, then what remains is the essence (consciousness) of the object. Now you may ask, “define object.”

In these higher states we might meditate on the guru, we might encounter astral beings (angels), we might be receiving a flow of knowledge and wisdom, hearing an astral sound or music, or otherwise be meditating on an infinity of states or internal objects of astral sense. We might be working out past karma from the subconscious mind, even possibly working on present day problems in the material world. At this point (for me at least), and contemplating the sutras in their entirety, I cannot see any end or any limit to what Patanjali means by “object.”

Like the candle that vanishes as we gaze fixedly at it, but in reverse, it’s not the candle that vanishes, WE vanish. Imagine staring out of a window. At first you are daydreaming. Then after a time, the daydream vanishes and you are left in the void, as it were. But again, in these higher stages our fixed concentration upon so called objects results in OUR vanishing. This does not mean, as opposed to daydreaming, that we lose consciousness. No, no, no & far, far from it.  As the entire universe, whether objects of thought, emotions, or material objects are a dream of the cosmic Dreamer and are in their essence consciousness and thought, so we, by deep concentration, enter into and become that consciousness. There is nothing else, for we, too, are but a thought and have no essential reality beyond the Dreamer. Just as at night in our dreams we may or may not be conscious of our own role in the dream, and we might not recall or play the role dictated by our body’s current age or gender, so too we can enter into any other reality, even if but temporarily.

When we experience these three stages of dharana, dhyana, and samadhi in our contemplation of objects, Patanjali calls the combined process samyama. “Sam” is possibly the root for our word, same and is the root for samadhi and for samprajnata etc. Yama means control as we saw in relation to this term used to describe the first stage of the 8-Fold Path. This is important to most of the rest of book 3 wherein he describes the consequences of the three stage process of concentration when applied to various objects. Shall we move on?

In verse 8, Patanjali cautions us that samyama is still external to the seedless or final and true state of samadhi (nirbikalpa). Samyama by itself is not necessarily productive of nirbikalpa. One must meditate on OM and approach samadhi through the stages of Om samadhi and Kutastha samadhi (astral and causal planes through the spiritual eye as Yogananda taught in his lessons). Samyama should be practiced in the order of the stages as given. Samyama is more direct than focusing on the first five stages of the 8-Fold Path (so here we see a direct reference to the stages as not being strictly linear).  

Verse 9 is especially oblique. As I understand it, Patanjali is saying that to reach nirbikalpa samadhi one must set aside the impressions and knowledge one has received through the practice and experience of samyama. The chitta (energy and waves of thought) will alternate between this setting aside (he uses the term “suppression”) and the spontaneous emergence of chitta. (This is a subtle expression of the flux, or thought pulsations, that are the creative engine of the universe.) This stage or state he calls nirodha parinama.

In time and with depth of practice the chitta is at last pacified and calmed. The thought waves have subsided and we experience, at first, the void, or nirvana (no-thing-ness). As water fills a glass from above, or as a boat out at sea comes towards the shore, so at last, we begin to hear the booming shores of Bliss as we enter cosmic consciousness beyond the three worlds into the Infinite Bliss of Spirit.

As verse 10 points out, all past impressions may be now cleared out and neutralized. I take it to mean that the subconscious mind has become en-lightened. To achieve samadhi we must learn to redirect the restless thought waves which go constantly towards objects of desire into a uniform thought wave which is the true nature of chitta (consciousness). This nature is called Ekagrata and achieving this state leads to samadhi. The mind remains calm even when impressions of this calm state arise. This state is called Ekagrata Parinama.

Now that we have reached Samadhi, we are ready to hear from Patanjali how samyama can reveal the nature of the creation. Stay tuned for the next blog!

Blessings,

Nayaswami Hriman